


gunpowder age

by legete



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Community: trope_bingo, Gen, Guns, Poker, Team Dynamics, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legete/pseuds/legete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>See, the first time he’d ever held a rifle was at Camp Lehigh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gunpowder age

**Author's Note:**

> Originally submitted to the [Marvel Throwdown](http://marvelthrowdown.tumblr.com)'s Bucky-themed challenge [here](http://marvelthrowdown.tumblr.com/post/49122424748/gunpowder-age-bucky-throwdown). Also fulfills the "poker" square on my Trope Bingo card, so, y'know, twofer.

He wakes up to something heavy landing on top of him, and he thrashes enough that he nearly falls out of his cot. For a minute he’s disoriented, the only familiar thing the burst of laughter from Morita and Dernier, before the room settles into normalcy. Between missions, back in London. Right. He flops back onto his flat pillow and scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands for a moment.

“Late night, Barnes?” Jones asks, polishing his shoes in the cot across from his.

Dugan snaps his suspenders up onto bare shoulders, smirking down at him. Bucky makes a rude gesture half at the two of them and half at the entire world, then scoops Dugan’s jacket off of his chest, wads it, and wings it across the room. The thump it makes against the far wall is very satisfying.

In retaliation, Dugan reaches beneath the cot and upends it, sending Bucky yelping to the floor in a pile, tangled with his blanket. Morita laughs again, and seriously, fuck him--he’s the last one awake often enough, he should have some empathy. “The hell is this thing?” Dugan says suddenly, kicking something that’s with Bucky’s stuff under his cot. He bends and yanks it out, and Bucky squints for a minute before he recognizes the Betsy he picked up last night.

“S’a rifle,” Bucky says, attempting to find his way back to some small level of dignity. His mouth tastes like death and he has to take a piss, though, so it’s not going too well.

“Ya don’t say,” Dugan replies, mock-incredulously, checking it over. “But what _is_ it? British?”

Falsworth looks up from the paper he’s paging through. “May I?” He catches it with a clatter, tips it a little, then shakes his head. “Johnson Automatics. Made in Providence, RI, USA. You could always _read the stamp,_ you know.”

Dugan finishes pulling on his jumper and scowls. “Knowing that don’t answer the question of where it came from or why Barnes has it.”

“It’s a M1941 Johnson ‘Betsy,’ and I won it,” Bucky says indignantly. “On five-card draw, from a Ranger. Three kings.” He’d also come back with eleven dollars, six pounds sterling, a small stack of French nude postcards, and a full tin of Almond Roca, but since _those_ hadn’t been noticed, he thinks he’ll keep it to himself.

“Must’ve been lucky,” Jones grins.

“Nah, Bucky’s ace at cards,” Steve finally interjects from the corner, where he’s using a little square wall-mounted mirror over a sink to shave. As Captain America, he’s always getting offers to stay with important people or in fancy, un-blitzed hotels, and he always turns them down in order to bunk with them in whatever second-rate accommodations can be scrounged together. It’s ridiculous and self-sacrificing and completely like him. As Bucky watches, he whacks the straight razor on the edge of the porcelain to knock off the last of the lather and checks himself over for missed spots. Must be planning on seeing Agent Carter today--a traditional shaving kit for when they’re back on English soil is one of the few indulgences Steve’s allowed himself, forgoing the safety razor and tube of brushless provided in the average field kit.

“We should play sometime,” Morita says, speculatively. 

Steve shrugs while folding his razor. “Give him half the chance and he’ll take the shirt off your back. He’s ruthless once you get a deck in his hands.”

Bucky’s not sure if he should be offended or flattered. And besides, the Army Ranger had been pretty lit up at the time--he likely could’ve claimed the pot on _five_ kings without a challenge. He decides to keep that fact to himself while he makes a quick run to the adjacent washroom, snagging his kit on the way. Abbreviated morning routine later--he took a look at himself and decided to nix shaving, since his Gillette needs a new blade anyway; if evening plans take shape between now and then, he’ll pop back and borrow Steve’s set--he comes back out to discover Dernier with the Betsy, explaining something rapid-fire to Jones. Bucky’s French isn’t that good yet, so he has to join the others in waiting for the translation.

“Says it’s broken,” Jones explains succinctly.

Dernier aims at the wall and dryfires, then starts talking as he smacks the rotary magazine a few times before yanking on the bolt.

“Something’s jamming the bolt halfway. Too expensive and slow to fix, and dangerous to use.”

Dugan looks like it’s his birthday. “You won a piece of junk, Jimmy.”

Bucky’s prickled, and it must show on his face, because Dugan starts chuckling. Bucky waves him off. “I’ll just pawn it off somewhere.”

“Look at him, it bothers him,” Dugan prods.

Steve rolls his eyes a little and stands with an ushering motion. “All right, fellas. Breakfast. Let’s go.”

Dugan nods while heading for the door. “You’re right, Cap, you’re right. His face when he ended up on the floor was better.” He laughs, like just the memory is enough to get him going again, and he’s joined by the others. Falsworth even coughs, which Bucky’s pretty sure is the height of Brit amusement.

“Thanks for letting him do that, by the way,” Bucky grouses.

The corner of Steve’s mouth quirks. “Sorry, Buck. Tried twice to wake you when I got up, but you just told me to go fuck myself.”

Okay, Bucky can’t really argue with that one.

\--

He doesn’t pawn it.

See, the first time he’d ever held a rifle was at Camp Lehigh. He’d trained on an M1903 that had probably been a relic from the Great War, the stock scarred and the barrel sporting shiny pocks from abuse at the careless hands of a hundred draftees before him. He’d nearly had his thumb taken off in the chamber on his first day, and he has the thin white scar to prove it. But he’d gotten better after that, by leaps and bounds. Seemed a little odd to him at the time, that he was a crack shot--the mountain boys from West Virginia, sure, but a factory worker from Brooklyn? But something about a rifle just made sense to him, felt like an extension of his body. He got a little long-range shooting training after he made the jump to NCO, just prior to his furlough, and the rest has all been catch as catch can. 

There’s something he likes about the Betsy, just inherently--it’s a puzzle to figure out. He spends the rest of the time they’re staging in London to work out the kinks; something in the rotary magazine is warped, keeping the automatic recoil from ejecting the spent casing and chambering a new round. It’s fixed easy enough by a jiggle on the bolt before tugging it back, but the thing’s never going to be a proper semiautomatic again until someone disassembles it and painstakingly fixes the warping. At least he can use his standard-issue thirty-aught-six stripper clips in the damn thing--he doesn’t want to imagine the hell he’d get into for requesting some other cartridge. 

When they get their new orders, heading off to the Maginot line, he’s had enough time to play that he’s made a choice. He “misplaces” the M1903 they’ve stuck him with--it’s a decent enough rifle, but it’s old and finicky, and the scope is shit--and packs the Betsy instead. Dugan about busts his spleen laughing when he sees it as they’re loading into the plane.

He’s expecting Steve to have words for him--Steve’s always had words for him, even when Bucky had six inches and fifty pounds on him--and he has a whole slew of arguments ready. Ten rounds instead of five, bolt-action gives him more control over single shots, chance for a better scope. Maybe it’s a little bit vanity, too, though--he’s on a squad with a lord, a scholar, a radio whiz, a bombmaker, a mustachioed wall, and Captain fuckin’ America. He’s in real danger of being slotted into sidekick territory, Steve’s pet buddy from back home, and maybe he feels like he has something to prove. He’s not sure why he’s pinning all that on a broken rifle that the Army didn’t even like enough to issue to general troops, but hell. He’s got a soft spot for the broke-down and the overlooked.

Steve takes one look at the rifle, raises his eyebrows at Bucky’s set jaw, and says nothing.

\--

Thing shoots truer than anything he’s ever used, just a beautiful piece of work. He’s covering the rest of the Howling Commandos--don’t ask him, he didn’t come up with the name--as they run like hell out of a burning HYDRA base, and all he has to do is lick his finger to wet the sight (half out of superstition, half out of habit) and just pick off any goggled bastards giving chase. By now the bolt action feels as natural as anything.

Steve clambers up the tree to perch next to him afterward and looses a low whistle at the number of bodies stretching in a macabre trail from the gates of the burning base to the treeline. Bucky swallows back an apology--this is _war,_ Steve can handle a few dead enemy soldiers--and just shrugs. He’s not expecting congratulations, though, not from Steve, who’s never shied away from a necessary thing but would never find something to celebrate in death. Steve stares for a moment longer before hopping back down to the ground.

Next time they’re in London, Bucky’s accosted by Stark about a custom high-powered scope for the Betsy, and Bucky just thinks _well all right, then._

\--

The first time he drops a man at eight hundred yards, Dugan buys him a drink. It is _almost_ as satisfying as chambering the next round.

\--

He loses the Betsy in the Warta when the bridge they’re fleeing across gets blasted out from under them, a critical support beam disintegrating in a burst of blue light. He hits water, the hiss of evaporation all around him, and by the time he claws his way out half a mile downstream, half-dragging a spluttering Falsworth with him, the rifle’s gone. It’s a small price for their lives, but he does feel a bit of a pang.

Steve half-jokingly asks if he’d like to say a few words that night, once they’ve all rendezvoused. Half-joking because he says the same thing about Jones’s missing boot and one of Morita’s radios, but they share a look that speaks volumes of growing up with nothing and cherishing the little things. But in the end, really was just a thing, and Steve’s already relinquished use of his Thompson until they can lay hands on a scoped Garand, so Bucky can make do.

It’s war, after all--there’s barely time to mourn men, let alone tools; Zola escaped in the chaos at the last base, and they have time for about four hours of shut-eye, then they have a train to catch.


End file.
